The end of Saorge France

 

A full week later here I am completing my eccentric photo tour of the French mountain town of Saorge. Today's pictures will complete my collection of 42 pictures of the village. Could I possibly have anything left to say about Saroge?

Sure. For instance, we can talk a bit about their monastery. The monastery is sort of out at the far end of town and does a lovely job of taking in the natural scenery of the area, the history, and the views back at the town. Many of my pictures from the past six days are from the exterior grounds or the inside buildings and terraced grounds and gardens of The Monastery of Saorge.

These pictures of the monastery were not free as it cost seven euros to visit!

But I do think I've aleady mentioned this... price. 

Owned by the French government, I will grant that the monastery is kept up pretty nicely. They've also made the place over into a writers residence which must be the kind residency I dreamed of finding when I was younger. The writers, translators, scriptwriters, and composers that somehow landed this sweet gig, occupy the level of the old monk cells, which presumably are redone. There they tirelessly labor on stuff like clerkmanifesto probably, but in French, and of not as high a quality.

There's a communal kitchen too, but none of this was open to visitors.

I'm not keen on the State charging admissions to cultural and natural treasures like national parks and museums and historical locations, but this one was at least worth it. On an ill fated trip to a more famous, more preserved, and more loathesume hill town called Eze, we paid even more money to enter their "Botanical Gardens" which I put in quotes because it wasn't really very convincing as a botanical garden, more a few pretty paths at the top of the town with nice views of the sea far below. But let's not talk about Eze, which is like a lovely well made antique piece of furniture encased in a plastic protective coating. It bums me out.

No, the Monastery was a site built in the 1600's where people monasted, and soldiers occupied, and craftsmen crafted over many years. I even ended up in some sort of tunnel room that was partly painted gold. I think it was a modern art installation. I probably even featured a picture of it here that you would have assumed was the product of my usual fakery, although I might also have a fake picture of it too. Speaking of fakery, many of my 42 pictures featured cats that were rarely real, but the monastery here had a couple of quite friendly cats which makes me feel that all of my other pictures were at least in the proper spirit of the place.

And now you know all there is to know about Saorge!

The next thing

 

Surely the next thing must be around here someplace. I can feel it in the air. I'm pretty sure the next thing will be showing up on clerkmanifesto any day now. So it might be a good idea to make some space for it.

You know, just in case it 

wait,

what was that noise?

Was that something coming in the window at Clerkmanifesto? Is the next thing here right now????!

Wait here.

I'll go check.

Oh, it was a cat. So, almost as good. 

Well, while we're waiting, why don't I show you whatever pictures I have left in the folder on my desktop titled "To Post". If I'm not willing to post them now then they need to go in the file "Finished unposted". And if the next thing isn't here soon, we may end up rifling around in that file too.

Brace yourself, it turns out this is quite a haul.

Some cat

 

No, there is no picture of a cat today. I'm going to tell you a story.

In this busy city I see many people. They are very interesting. I like best when they are from everywhere and not just French, which is more true the closer one gets to the water here. Japanese American German Syrian Indian Senegalese Chinese, beggers, rich people, people falling apart in wheel chairs, young people, working people, old people, and people bursting with life! It is amazing.

I also see a lot of dogs, and they are largely well behaved and interesting too! I see pigeons, who I am very fond of, and seagulls, who are dazzling expressions of the wind. And less often, if I am very, very lucky, I run into a cat.

Today I saw a cat!

Yes yes yes yes, big deal, I saw a cat. There are lots of cats. And I would grudgingly accept your tepid, non cat obsessed view of the universe, and move on to complain about cars or something, but...

BUT

This was some cat.

If this cat knew a spider, the spider might weave a web that spelled out "Some Cat!".

But the literary spiderweb would have mostly been confusing because this cat was on the move! If you saw the web in the corner of a building saying "Some Cat!" you might look around and mutter "What cat?". 

Unless you read clerkmanifesto.

Which is why it is a good idea to read clerkmanifesto.

Tell your friends.

Let me set the scene:

My darling wife and I had morning business on the computer in our cozy little apartment. So we didn't get going until afternoon. We then had a few life supplies to pick up so we went and bought:

Toilet paper

Garbage bags

Sparkling water

Champagne

Tonic Water

A chocolate patisserie

These were heavy (well, not the patisserie, but it was delicate). So we decided we would stop home to drop them all off.

Also, and I'm sorry about this. It is crude. But I cannot hide it from you:

We had to pee.

But when we got home we were hungry, so we made lunch.

I had potatoes, onion, fennel, with very aged gouda. And then we were feeling very cozy indeed and not so keen to go out again. But we have an informal rule: go see the water every day! So we made a plan:

What if I took us out for a drink at the fabulous sidewalk cafe Verragno? And then we sat there drinking our drinks. Then we went to the water. Then we came home?

So we did.

Which sets our scene.

A table was available where we sit side by side on a short pedestrian street that goes but one block to the ocean. It is a pageant of humanity! We watched the people go by. We talked about stuff.

What stuff?

Wouldn't you like to know!

My darling wife had a rose'. I had a Campari Spritz. It was large and bitter. I like their strong spritzes at Verragno. They are seven euros during happy hour.

And then a pigeon landed in the road, or the pedestrian way. And we heard a great and terrible yowl.

What a yowl. I didn't think a pigeon could make such a noise, but it was definitely animal, not human.

The pigeon left hurriedly.

And that's when it happened.

The cat appeared.

With a terrible and discordant bellow, he strutted into view on the busy way, headed away from the ocean, into the city. He wore an astonishing necklace full of large diamonds. His coloring was unlike any I've ever seen on a housecat, more like that of a leopard, with sleek and dangerous brown ringed spots on a lighter fur background.

Some cat!

And he had business!

Without hesitating he walked on, ropey and sleek, yowling occasionally, never hesitating, and soon he was out of view, swallowed up in the crowds and noise and tumult of the Rue De France.

What on earth did we just see?

A cat.

We finished our drinks and walked to the ocean.

We came home and I told you about it.

Welcome to my web.

The lovely Chagall Museum cafe and I mean it this time!

 

I can't manage to go to the Chagall Museum near here without mentioning how pretty I find their garden cafe. But last time we went to it, and I tried to show you a picture of the cafe, I was distracted by a cat there, so I ended up showing you a picture I made of the cat, just emerging from behind a big tree in front of the cafe. 

I didn't show you the cafe at all.

Today we rectify that!

I have been working my little heart out with my layers of drawing and effects and I'm thinking I might buy a drawing tablet to make this easier, maybe, a little. Or I might buy one to at least give me a little more control since I am not great at drawing with a mouse!

Anyway...

Is today's picture every bit as good as those by Marc Chagall?

Hmmmm.

I guess I'm not as vain as I once was.

No.

No no no no no.

But you knew that.

Still, that doesn't mean that we might nevertheless like looking at it. 

And it even has the cat!

Three cultures

 

Having spent some time living in three cultures in the past year, The USA, Japan, and France, it is natural for me to compare some of their differences. And today I would like to talk about the detail of children getting out of school.

This particular comparison comes to mind because lately, by some fluke, we always seem to be coming home down a small street in front of a school just before it lets out. I think it is an elementary school. And when it is time to let the kids out masses of parents gather on the sidewalks in front of the heavily gated school entrance. While I do find cars in France to be an annoying addition to this city, the vast majority of people really are walking to do everything not because it is some virtuous act, but because it is far and away the easier and more reasonable and pleasant way to do most things in this city. And so it is with picking up children from school in France. I didn't see a single car waiting out front of the school to pick anybody up. It was all parents, and sometimes the smaller not yet school aged children, waiting for the big kids to get out of school.

In my former country, the USA, we would walk by a school occasionally as it let out and it invariably involved a mad and dangerous tangle of cars and buses. The less said about that one the better.

And as for Japan? That I found most fascinating of all, although strangely it was closer to what I experience going to elementary school myself as a child. In Japan the children just walked home by themselves, together or alone, although it went even farther than that. Small children, some not yet even school age, would take buses and subways and move responsibly about the city of Kyoto completely on their own. One might see a five year old walking alone down a crowded urban street, entirely capable, on some mysterious mission of his or her own.

So, three cultures, three different approaches. And which one do I prefer?

I prefer not having children.

We did see a really cute cat though yesterday.

What it looks like here, with cats!

 

A couple of days ago here I set forth a small series of photographs from my travels around town just as they came out of the camera. My point was that in all our explorations of this lovely Belle Epoque city, I usually manage a few pictures that look okay just as they are.

But I do like to make them look better.

So here, from that same collection, are the pictures as they are after going through a few layers of work.

Oh, and I put a cat in each of them.